François-Xavier Bagnoud Award

The François-Xavier Bagnoud Vertical Flight Award, created in 1992 and first known as the AHS Director’s Award, is given to an individual Society member under the age of 35 for their career-to-date outstanding contributions to vertical flight technology. The Award honors the memory of a young helicopter engineer, Swiss citizen, author and rescue pilot who founded the AHS student chapter at the University of Michigan. At 20 years of age, he published a treatise on helicopter aerodynamics. Subsequently, he developed within Europe IFR procedures for rotorcraft, and as a commercial pilot, he performed more than 300 helicopter rescue missions.